


Energy

by buttercream



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Brief descriptions of violence and torture, M/M, MAMA!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7232518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercream/pseuds/buttercream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baekhyun's powers aren't supposed to come back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Energy

**Author's Note:**

> So I did something called "Baekxing Week". It was a silly, silly idea, and resulted in 7 baekxing drabbles. This is the first one. Big thanks to my bro Amy for helping me out <3

There’s light. The faintest of lights, almost a blurred figure on the back of his lids. Feels like artificial light, but warms his face as if there were natural rays shining on him. 

“Yixing.”

The warm hand on his naked shoulder makes it evident that something is happening outside of the dream he was having. It was a good dream. He was by the ocean, and the water was a bright blue reflecting the daytime sky. The last time Yixing saw water like that he was five years old, sitting on his father’s shoulders as they watched the drones projecting on the clear sky that week’s list of deceased. It had been the week his sister’s name came up.

“Yixing, look.”

He groans, one hand flying to shield his eyes from the light. And then it intensifies, becoming impossible to ignore. Yixing slowly opens his eyes, rubbing sleep away from them. He props himself on his elbows, one of the faces he’s seen every day for the past five months coming into focus. A face that definitely wasn’t sitting on his bed when Yixing went to sleep last night.

“Baekhyun,” his voice comes out rough. “What’s going on?”

The other scoots closer to him, both palms up and turned towards Yixing. “It’s stronger, look.” says Baekhyun. He looks excited, teeth pulling on his bottom lip as he stares holes into his hands.

Yixing knows what this is about. He sits up, and that is when it happens. It spreads from the tips of his fingers, taking over the whole expanse of his hands. Soon enough, Baekhyun’s hands are as bright as a led panel. And suddenly brighter. So much brighter that Yixing hoods his eyes, face leaning back. It elicits a chuckle from the other.

“See? It got like this overnight. I woke up and went to check on it, you know, just to see if I still had it, and then it just blew out of me like I was fucking Havok.” he excites, his soft hair flopping. As if realization dawned on him, Baekhyun’s face falls. “Do you think they know?”

The light dims until it’s completely out, and Yixing frowns. He shakes his head, collecting both of Baekhyun’s hands in his by instinct. “There’s no way they know about it. They don’t even have our current location.”

Naturally, Baekhyun’s hands are warm. Blinking at Yixing, he quietly nods, lowering his eyes to the space between them on the mattress. “I’m just… After what happened to Jinri, I’m just--”

“What happened to Jinri could have happened to any of us at the time, but not now. We’re safe now, Baek, I promise.” When the boy gives no sign of believing his words, Yixing pulls his hands a little closer to himself. Baekhyun looks up. “I promise.”

 

\--

 

It happened before Yixing was even born. His father used to talk about it every day. Yixing and his sister would hear about how it was before the drones breached the atmosphere, before the Outsiders decided to suck every ounce of living energy existing on the planet. There used to be a lot of energy.

Just like every other being on the planet, Yixing was born with a purpose.

“Your hands are very special,” his father told him once. “They can mend what was broken. Give back what was lost.”

He couldn’t understand what it meant at first, but his sister took care of explaining. He saw her pick the neighbor’s dog from the ground and, with a gentle touch of her hand, heal the animal’s injured leg. “This is what we can do,” she said. “We have it so we can help others.”

They never really had a home. The Outsiders made sure of that. Along with small groups of people they were always moving, always traveling across old, deteriorated cities seeking a safe place the Outsiders wouldn’t reach.

To this day, Yixing fails to remember how his sister disappeared. There had been a commotion at the camp they were staying at, and drones appeared out of nowhere. In the blink of an eye she was gone. His father and a couple other adults went looking for missing people, but they were never found. A couple days later when drones flew high to project the list of the deceased on the sky, her name came up.

 

Yixing was fifteen when someone finally figured out why the people were being taken. All those years the survivors had been moving from one spot to another, escaping the Outsiders, which intentions no one had a clue of. Many speculated they wanted land. Others figured they were after riches or natural products of the planet. It was only when the first person taken managed to return that their goal became clear.

It was a man. Shino, his name was. A member of the water clans. Even though his name was never announced on the lists, his family had believed him dead. 

“They took it out,” Yixing still remembers his bloodshot eyes and cracked lips. His pierced arms and bald head. “My energy. They took it all out.”

 

After a while, Yixing stopped seeing the drones in the sky. It didn’t mean people had stopped being captured. It just meant that they were doing a better job hiding.

 

\--

 

“Jongin said they were keeping the dead inside this really big container,” Sehun says later at breakfast. 

“If I were Jongin I would be careful where I end up,” Minseok advises. “There are stories of people like him who thought they were smarter than the ‘Siders and never returned.”

Sehun seems to take offense, “No ‘Sider ever touched Jongin.”

Sighing, the elder shakes his head in blatant disapproval. Sehun huffs petulantly. “Just tell him to be careful.”

Everything looks just the way it was the previous day. The facility is intact, people are alive, the systems are working. No signs of attacks during the night. Still, Baekhyun fidgets in his seat, legs bouncing and eyes constantly lowering to stare at his hands. Yixing touches his wrist, and the younger startles.

“Easy,” he chuckles. Baekhyun smiles, shaking his head.

“Sorry.”

“What’s on your mind?”

If he were anyone else Baekhyun would instantly shrug him off and stand up, escaping the question. He’s not anyone else.

“I know the place Sehun is talking about,” he whispers. “It’s there in their station. We passed the place when they took us to… That other room.” Baekhyun faces Yixing, his eyes wide and lower lip trembling slightly. “There are a lot of dead people, Yixing.”

Yixing squeezes his hand, thumb caressing his knuckles. Baekhyun sighs. “You got out. You survived, they can’t hurt you anymore.”

The younger frowns, “They took my powers out, Yixing. I still remember how painful it was. I wasn’t supposed to have any.”

“Maybe they didn’t take everything.”

Baekhyun snorts. “That never happens.”

He sits closer to the other, hand moving to touch Baekhyun’s neck. “It happened to you,” Yixing says. “And you’re ok.”

“Promise me,” Baekhyun mutters, eyes downcast. “That you won’t tell anyone about it coming back.” 

Yixing is about to chide him, but the scared and unsure look on Baekhyun’s eyes stops him from doing anything other than press a long, reassuring kiss on the boy’s cheek, brushing his hair away from his pretty face. “Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

 

\--

 

The first time Yixing saw Byun Baekhyun, he was seventeen. He was fleeing from a horde of bots with Jongdae when something collided with him. Yixing lost focus amid all the chaos for a second, falling to the ground. He could hear Jongdae’s desperate voice calling out to him, yelling that they had to _leave the camp, the bots are coming_. Someone suddenly yanked him to his feet, and when his eyes regained focus, it was the face of Byun Baekhyun he saw, wide eyes and dirty cheeks.

“Come on!” the person he had never seen before yelled, and pulled him in such a haste Yixing almost lost balance. They followed Jongdae into the woods and ran. 

Once they were safe, having found shelter inside what seemed to be an old convenience store, Yixing inquired Jongdae about supplies. They _did_ leave the camp without a single bag of fruits, or loaf of bread.

“I have bread,” Baekhyun said, opening his backpack and splitting one single loaf into two pieces. “I was planning to leave first thing tomorrow.”

Frowning, Yixing studied him. “I don’t remember seeing you around the camp.”

Baekhyun glanced at him briefly before looking down at the loaves, wrapping his piece and putting it back in his bag. Chuckling, he said, “I arrived a few hours ago. Needed some food. The people in your camp were really kind. I don’t have much luck sometimes.”

“Do you have anyone?” Jongdae asked, bowing in thanks for the bread as he received the other half handed by the other boy.

“Everyone I ever knew was taken,” Baekhyun shrugged, as if losing a loved one was a daily occurrence. “When I find a nice place, I stay for a while. But I tend to walk around.”

“Where are you headed now?” Yixing inquired.

“South.”

Jongdae shook his head, “We’re going north,” he told Yixing. “I heard about this underground facility… They say the bots can’t go in because of a technology to block their signal. It’s a fortress.”

The tales of that so-called fortress were going around the campus for days, Yixing saw a few families gather their things and head north.

Baekhyun frowned. “There’s nothing there. I came from the north, and all the camps were raided. It’s a ‘Sider territory now.”

“It’s underground. The ‘Siders can’t find it.”

It took him a while, but eventually, Baekhyun sighed. “I came from the north. There’s nothing there.” He faced both Yixing and Jongdae with resolution. “I’m going south.”

So they split. Baekhyun handed them a spare water bottle and shook their hands. Before he could turn around and walk his own path, Yixing held his arm.

“Thank you,” he said, voice low. “For helping me back there at the camp.”

Baekhyun smiled, his lips stretching in a way Yixing couldn’t help but find pretty. It’d been a long time since he last thought something was pretty. “Stay safe,” Baekhyun said, and walked away.

 

They met again five months ago. Baekhyun was found by hunters from the facility on their way back. According to the people who brought him in, he was lying unconscious in the woods, stark naked. Yixing recognized him the moment he laid eyes on his face. He was bald, but that was definitely the boy who had helped him four years ago.

“Isn’t that…” Jongdae muttered. Yixing simply nodded. “He was taken.”

“He’s alive,” Yixing said.

“One lucky bastard.”

 

\--

 

The nights used to be warmer before they gave Baekhyun his own room. Yixing would make space for the younger under his covers, and they would stare at the ceiling for a few hours, discussing how much time they had left to live. Sometimes Yixing would wake up with Baekhyun completely attached to him, sometimes he would seek the others’ warmth in the middle of the night.

He misses it. It’s been cold. Sometimes he wonders if asking them to give Baekhyun his own room was really a good idea. He thought he could use the privacy, but in the end, it’s Yixing who wanders into Baekhyun’s room searching for company.

He walks into Baekhyun’s room, finding the other burrowed underneath his comforter. He isn’t asleep, though. Baekhyun moves when he feels Yixing’s weight sink the mattress a bit.

“Are you lonely?” Baekhyun asks, but doesn’t wait for Yixing’s response before lifting the covers in invitation. 

“I was cold,” he says. It’s half true.

Baekhyun chuckles, one hand immediately meeting with Yixing’s waist, pulling him closer. He remains silent, only stares into Yixing’s eyes. His irises shimmer, brightness radiating from him. When Yixing frowns, bothered by the light in his own eyes, Baekhyun smiles, and suddenly he’s a lot closer.

“You didn’t tell anyone, did you?” he whispers. With their proximity, he doesn’t need to speak louder. Baekhyun brushes Yixing’s nose with his own, fingers tightening on the latter’s waist.

“I promised you,” Yixing answers, but he can feel his brain slipping into autopilot. The warmth emanating from the one touching him, speaking so close to him, seems to have stolen his attention. 

Baekhyun licks his lips (Yixing swears he does that on purpose), hand sliding upwards, settling on Yixing’s chest.

“Thank you.”

The way his lips circle the syllables in those words make Yixing’s eyes drop to his mouth, and Baekhyun closes the distance between them with a gentle press of lips. Baekhyun’s kiss feels like oxygen, like Yixing’s been breathing carbon dioxide all this time. He inhales, wrapping his arms around the younger, bringing him that much closer. 

“I missed you,” he whispers against Baekhyun’s mouth, hands caressing his back, threading on his hair, thumbs brushing over his cheeks. Yixing just wants to touch him all over.

“I thought you didn’t want this anymore.” He sounds almost unsure, and it forces Yixing to break the kiss, lean back a little to study the expression on Baekhyun’s face.

“I want you,” he assures. 

“Show me you want me.”

A heartbeat later their pants are lying on the ground. Baekhyun’s beautiful, silky hair is a mess on the pillow, his pretty hand shoved into his mouth to muffle his moans. He looks so good like this, reacting to Yixing’s every touch, to every jerk he gives his hard cock. When Baekhyun comes, Yixing leans over, watches his sweaty face up close. He doesn’t think a most beautiful person exists in this wrecked world. Yixing brushes Baekhyun’s wet bangs away from his face, and kisses him softly, intimately.

“If I had known this is what I’d get, I would have come north with you four years ago,” Baekhyun says, and Yixing chuckles, thinking that yes, there must be no one else like Baekhyun in the entire universe.


End file.
